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HOW AND WHY ABRAHAM LINCOLN
STARTED THE WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION TO PROTECT HIS OWN
POLITICAL CAREERby
Frank Conner

The North's Republican party came out of nowhere in 1854,
formed from the wreckage of the Whig party (the Northern
Conscience-Whigs), and from the Free-Soilers and the
Know-Nothings. It opposed slavery, and it demanded a powerful
national-government which would subsidize Northern
industrialization. The new Republican party grew very
rapidly. Not surprisingly, its key bankrollers were Northern
capitalists--financiers, shippers, industrialists, etc. Two
of its founders and strongest political-leaders were Salmon
P. Chase (first a senator and then a governor); and William
H. Seward (also a governor and a senator).

At the 1860 Republican convention in Chicago, Chase and
Seward were the favored candidates. Lincoln was a dark horse.
In national politics, he had served only in the House, and
only for one two-year term--1847-49: he had left Congress 11
years earlier! Lincoln had only three things going for him:
he was considered a political lightweight, who could easily
be manipulated by the powerbrokers; he himself was from
Illinois, so the convention hall was located on his own
stomping-grounds; and both he and his campaign manager--David
E. Davis--were extraordinarily-adroit politicians.

In 1860 the vast majority of the Republicans did not want
war. But the relatively-mild Seward had earlier coined
several phrases which led many to believe mistakenly that he
was a warmonger. And if Seward might possibly lead the
country into war, the hot-head Chase would probably do so.
Lincoln the unknown murmured soothing words of peace--which
went down well. Meanwhile, he and Davis manipulated that
convention behind the scenes in ways that would make today's
dirty-tricks advocates turn green with envy.
Consequently, Lincoln won the Republican nomination.

There were two factors about the Republican campaign in the
election of 1860 which disturbed the Southerners so badly
that Southern states subsequently seceded. First was the
Republican-party platform for 1860.
Basically, the Northern capitalists wanted the U.S.
government to tax (only) the South deeply, to finance the
industrialization of the North, and the necessary
transportation-net to support that. In those days, there was
no income tax. The federal government received most of its
revenue from tariffs (taxes) on imported goods. The Southern
states imported from England most of the manufactured goods
they used, thus paid most of the taxes to support the federal
government. (The Northerners imported very little.)

Second, the Republican party--unlike any of the other big
political-parties that had come along--was purely a regional
(Northern) party, not a national party. if the Republicans
somehow managed to gain control of Congress AND the White
House, they would then be able to use the federal government
to enact and enforce their party platform--and thus convert
the prosperous Southern-states into the dirt-poor
agricultural colonies of the Northern capitalists. And given
the 19th-century trends in demographics, the Southern states
would never be able to reverse that process. The intent of
the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution
would then have been subverted completely: the Southern
states would no longer be governed with the consent of the
governed--but instead bullied mercilessly by the Northern
majority. Why, then, remain in the Union?

Meanwhile, the numerically-far-stronger national
Democratic-party was busy self-destructing over the issue of
slavery.

So when the 1860 election-returns came in, it turned out that
the Republicans had won the White House, and substantial
majorities in the House and the Senate. When that message
sank in, Southern states began seceding from the
Union--beginning with South Carolina on 20 December 1860.
Several of them said that the main issue was the protection
of slavery, but that was strictly for local consumption by
people who did their thinking solely in terms of simple
slogans. The Southern legislators could do their math; thus
they knew full well that the only truly-safe way to protect
the institution of slavery would be for the Southern states
to remain in the Union and simply refuse to ratify any
proposed constitutional-amendment to emancipate the slaves.
For slavery was specifically protected by the Constitution,
and that protection could be removed only by an amendment
ratified by three-quarters of the states. In 1860 there were
15 slave states and 18 free states. Had the number of slave
states remained constant, 27 more free states would have had
to be admitted into the Union--for a total of 60
states--before an abolition amendment could be ratified. That
was not likely to occur anytime soon. But with the Southern
states seceding, the issue of slavery could then be settled
by force of arms at an time.

After the Republicans gained control of the presidency and
the Congress following the 1860 elections, eleven Southern
states eventually seceded from the Union--specifically to
avoid becoming the helpless agricultural-colonies of the
Northern capitalists.

This move took the Northern capitalists completely by
surprise. The South was like the little boy who was forever
crying "wolf." Southern states had been threatening
to secede ever since the Tariff of Abominations and the days
of Calhoun; the North no longer took those threats seriously.
But with the South now gone, there would be no federal
funding to industrialize the North--because the Northern
citizenry would certainly never agree to be taxed to pay for
it. And far worse than that, the many, many
Northern-capitalists who had been earning fortunes factoring
the Southern cotton-crop, transporting the cotton, and buying
the cotton for New England textile-mills now faced financial
ruin. The South normally bought its manufactured goods from
Britain, anyway. Now, as a sovereign nation, the South could
easily cut far better deals with the British financiers,
shipowners, and textile mills to supply the South with all of
the necessary support-services--leaving the Northern
capitalists out in the cold.

This was all Lincoln's fault! If he hadn't been elected, the
South wouldn't have seceded; and the Northern capitalists
would not now be in this mess.

So as President-elect Lincoln prepared to take over the
presidency, he was in a world of hurt. He had the trappings
of office--but not the powerbase to support him safely in
office against the slings and arrows of his outrageous
political-enemies. Both Seward and Chase had well-established
powerbases (financial backers, newspapers, magazines,
personal political-organizations, friends in Congress, etc.).
Both of them badly wanted Lincoln's job. Both of them merely
awaited the first opportunity to spring a political trap on
him; then subject him to deadly public-ridicule; and
thereafter cut him off at the knees.

Given time, Lincoln--who would, after all, occupy the
presidency--could weld together a formidable powerbase of his
own; but right at the beginning of his term he was perilously
vulnerable. He MUST now have the support of the Northern
capitalists.

Lincoln was a Whig masquerading as a Republican, because that
was now the only game in town. He didn't care anything about
the slavery issue; he preferred to temporize with the
abolitionists. But he couldn't temporize with the Northern
capitalists. He would have to drag the South back into the
Union immediately, or he'd (figuratively) be shot out of the
saddle and discredited very quickly; then Seward or Chase
would really be running the country; and Lincoln could forget
all about being reelected in 1864. That was unthinkable. But
there was no way Lincoln or anyone else in the Republican
party could possibly talk the Southern states back into the
Union at this stage of the game; so he would have to conquer
them in war.
(He assumed it would be a 90-day war, which the Union Army
would win in one battle.)

If you read Lincoln's first inaugural-address with any care
at all, you'll see that it was simply a declaration of war
against the South. It was also filled with lies and specious
reasoning. In 1861, the official government-charter for the
U.S. was the U.S. Constitution. In writing it, the delegates
to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (some of the
most-canny politicians in the country) had pointedly omitted
from it the "perpetual union" clause which had been
a main feature of the unworkable Articles of Confederation
and Perpetual Union--the U.S.-government charter which had
preceded the Constitution.

Under the Articles, no state could secede lawfully unless all
states seceded simultaneously. But the Constitution--which
Lincoln had just taken an oath to uphold--did not contain
that clause (or any other like it); so any state could secede
lawfully at any time. And the Southern states did secede
lawfully. Honest Abe flat-out lied when he said that was not
so in his inaugural address; and he subsequently used his
blatant lie to slaughter 623,000 Americans and
Confederates--primarily in order to perpetuate himself in
political office.

Lincoln had said he would go to war to "preserve the
Union." But in order to start the war, he would somehow
have to maneuver the South into firing the first shots,
because Congress did not want war and would not declare war
of its own volition.

The most-likely hot-spot in which Lincoln could start his war
was Charleston Harbor, where shots had already been fired in
anger under the Buchanan administration. But the
newly-elected governor of South Carolina, Francis Pickens,
saw the danger--that Lincoln might, as an excuse, send a
force of U.S. Navy warships to Charleston Harbor supposedly
to bring food to Maj Anderson's Union force holed up in Fort
Sumter. So Gov Pickens opened negotiations with Maj Anderson,
and concluded a deal permitting Anderson to send boats safely
to the market in Charleston once a week, where Anderson's men
would be allowed to buy whatever victuals they wished.
(This arrangement remained in effect until a day or so before
the U.S. Navy warships arrived at Charleston). Maj Anderson
wrote privately to friends, saying that he hoped Lincoln
would not use Fort Sumter as the excuse to start a war, by
sending the U.S. Navy to resupply it.

Before his inauguration, Lincoln sent a secret message to Gen
Winfield Scott, the U.S. general-in-chief, asking him to make
preparations to relieve the Union forts in the South soon
after Lincoln took office. Lincoln knew all along what he was
going to do.

President Jefferson Davis sent peace commissioners to
Washington to negotiate a treaty with the Lincoln
administration. Lincoln refused to meet with them; and he
refused to permit Secretary of State Seward to meet with
them.

After Lincoln assumed the presidency, his principal generals
recommended the immediate evacuation of Maj Anderson's men
from Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor--which was now located
on foreign soil. To resupply it by force at this point would
be a deliberate act-of-war against the C.S.A.

It turned out that Lincoln's postmaster general, Montgomery
Blair, had a brother-in law, Gustavus V. Fox, who was a
retired Navy-captain and wanted to get back into action. Fox
had come up with a plan for resupplying Fort Sumter which
would force the Confederates to fire the first shots--under
circumstances which would make them take the blame for the
war. Lincoln sent Fox down to Fort Sumter to talk with Maj
Anderson about the plan; but Anderson wanted no part of it.

Lincoln had Fox pitch the plan to his Cabinet twice. The
first time, the majority said that Fox's plan would start a
war and were unenthusiastic about it. But the second time,
the Cabinet members got Lincoln's pointed message, and
capitulated.

Meanwhile, Congress got wind of the plan. Horrified, they
called Gen Scott and others to testify about it; Scott and
the other witnesses said they wanted no part of the move
against the Confederacy in Charleston; and nor did Congress.
Congress demanded from Lincoln--as was Congress's
right--Fox's report on Maj Anderson's reaction to the plan.
Lincoln flatly and unconstitutionally refused to hand it over
to them.

Lincoln sent to Secretary Cameron (for transmittal to
Secretary Welles) orders in his own handwriting (!) to make
the warships Pocahantas and Pawnee and the armed-cutter
Harriet Lane ready for sailing, along with the passenger ship
Baltic--which would be used as a troop ship, and two
ocean-going tugboats to aid the ships in traversing the
tricky shallow harbor-entrance at Charleston. This naval
force was to transport 500 extra Union-soldiers to reinforce
Maj Anderson's approximately-86-man force at Fort
Sumter--along with huge quantities of munitions, food, and
other supplies.

The Confederacy would, of course, resist this invasion--in
the process firing upon the U.S. flag. The unarmed tugs
would, of necessity, enter the harbor first, whereupon they
would likely be fired upon by the C.S.A., giving Lincoln the
best-possible propaganda to feed to the Northern newspapers,
which would then rally the North to his "cause."

Lincoln sent orders for the Union naval-force to time its
sailing so as to enter Charleston Harbor on 11 or 12 April.
Next, Lincoln sent a courier to deliver an ultimatum to Gov
Pickens on 8 April, saying that Lincoln intended to resupply
Fort Sumter peaceably or by force. There was no mistaking the
intent of that message.

Lincoln had set the perfect trap. He had given President
Davis just enough time to amass his forces and fire upon the
U.S. Navy. But if Davis acquiesced instead, Lincoln need
merely begin sending expeditionary forces to recapture all of
the former Union-forts in the South now occupied by
Confederate forces; sooner or later Davis would have to
fight; and the more forts he allowed Lincoln to recapture in
the interim, the weaker would be the military position of the
C.S.A. As a practical matter, Davis was left with no choice.

Accordingly, the C.S.A., when informed that the U.S. Navy was
en route, demanded that Maj Anderson surrender the fort
forthwith. Anderson refused; Beauregard's artillery bombarded
Fort Sumter into junk (miraculously without loss of life
during the bombardment); and Anderson then surrendered with
honor intact. The U.S. Navy arrived during the
bombardment--but because elements of the force had been
delayed for various reasons, did not join in the fight. The
Navy was allowed to transport Anderson's men back to the U.S.

Thereafter Lincoln wrote to Fox, pronouncing the mission a
great success. Lincoln ended his letter by saying, "You
and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be
advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even
if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel
that our anticipation is justified by the result."

Folks, that ought to be plain enough for anybody to
understand.

Now Lincoln had his excuse for a war (assuming that he
continued to lie his head off about it--which he did); but
there was still no reason for him to believe that Congress
would declare war against the South on his say-so.
In fact, there was every indication that they would not. So
instead of obeying the Constitution and calling Congress into
emergency session and asking them to declare war and to call
up an army (which only Congress could do, under the
Constitution), Lincoln simply declared war and called up an
army himself--by naming the C.S.A.'s defense of its
sovereignty in Charleston Harbor an "insurrection"
against the U.S. government.

Lincoln did not call Congress into session until several
months later--when his war had progressed so far that
Congress could not then call it off, but as a practical
matter would have to rubberstamp it.

So Lincoln started the War of Northern Aggression virtually
single-handed.

Without vulnerable dark-horse Abraham Lincoln assuming the
presidency in 1861, I do not believe we would have had a war.
Nobody wanted one except Lincoln and a few
rabid-abolitionists and some Northern-capitalists whose
fortunes were threatened. I consider Lincoln a megalomaniacal
sociopath whose like we have not yet seen--and I pray we
never will see.

For anyone who wishes confirmation of what I have said--and
to learn the important details, please read John S. Tilley's
"Lincoln Takes Command," and Ludwell Johnson's
"North Against South/An American Iliad." Both books
are available new from Confederate booksellers. For those who
(for shame!) do not at presently patronize Confederate
booksellers, Tilley's book is currently published by Bill
Coats, Ltd. in Nashville (in 1991); and Johnson's by The
Foundation for American Education, P.O. Box 11851, Columbia,
SC 29211 (in 1995). Your local bookseller should be able to
order a copy for you.